


Living With The Beast

by AntiGravitas



Category: Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (Movies)
Genre: 5+1 Things, Animagus, Animagus!Percival, M/M, Stand Alone
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-10
Updated: 2018-10-12
Packaged: 2019-06-08 10:51:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 9,250
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15241788
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AntiGravitas/pseuds/AntiGravitas
Summary: Newt Scamander could write a whole book on the subject of living with an animagus. After all, the love of his life just happens to be one.





	1. Newt

**Author's Note:**

> Despite the topic, this fic is not related to the other animagus fic I've got currently ongoing, Nature of the Beast, and is not set in that timeline. :]
> 
> Written for the Fantastic Beasts Calendar event: many authors creating one fic a week for a year. If you have some time to spare, there’s still weeks [going unclaimed.](https://fantasticbeastscalendar.tumblr.com/thingsyouneedtoknow) It would be amazing to see the whole lot filled.
> 
> 1001 thank yous to @trensu for endless encouragement and last-minute lookings-over of this fic. <3

 

**1\. Medical Issues: How to help when they come back wounded.**

 

_"He's powerful, Newt, but how much use is a jaguar in a city?" ~ Tina Goldstein._

 

Newt has learned over the years not to ask what Percival does at work. Of course, he has a brother working in exactly the same role back home, and he’d heard things as they grew up, as you do, about just what an auror’s job calls for. Newt’s met dark wizards in his time, and he knows the ways of them, even if he’s not specifically trained in taking them down. And Percival Graves, Director of Magical Security for the entirety of the United States, has a lot of dark practitioners to deal with.

Newt knows, for example, that when it comes to the safety of the magical community, the buck stops with his partner. There is no-one else to turn to, no-one else to appeal to, no-one for whom the responsibility of other people’s safety is greater. There’s the President of course, and the President may have the final say, but the man who makes the plans that she approves, who makes the snap judgements that affect entire populations, that’s Percival. A President enacts the will of the people, the Director does what is necessary to keep them safe.

Percival Graves is not meant to be a field officer any more, but Newt knows he goes out anyway. He knows that he needs to, that Percival believes the only way he can truly get a feel for his city, an idea of the mood of its people, is if he goes out himself, sees with his own eyes and puts his own boots to the sidewalks. Or paws, because Newt knows damned well Percival patrols his city by night as a black jaguar, fur so dark he’s a spectre amongst the shadows.

And sometimes his partner gets it wrong, or gets it only just right, and sometimes the inevitable happens.

It’s only because of his extensive experience tending to his magical beasts that Newt knows what to do when Percival limps home at 4am. He leaves dark paw prints on the bedroom carpet, and when Newt reaches for him his fur is slick with blood, so dark against his natural colouring that Newt does not at first process what he’s seeing. It’s only when he lifts his hand away that he understands.

Newt doesn’t ask him what’s happened, he’s learned a long time ago that Percival won’t answer. If pressed he’ll hold his silence, and Newt has no leverage with which to compel him. The last thing he wants is to lose his trust, to make him hide this side of his affairs away so that Newt can’t see. Instead he patches him up with poultice and potion, charmwork and old-fashioned stitching, and sometimes it leaves scars across Percival’s skin that make silvery lines in the otherwise perfect darkness of his fur. They’re reminders that no matter how much control he exerts, how much power he wields, in the lightning-bright crack of his spells or the coiled muscle power of his jaguar form, at the end of the day Percival Graves is just a man.

  


 

**2\. Communication: Learning to speak without words.**

 

_"No matter how many times I tell him, Teenie, he just goes on thinking I can read his mind! I tell him, I say Mr Graves, sir, I can't read you in your animagus form, but he just looks at me like I'm crazy!" ~ Queenie Goldstein._

 

Sometimes, Newt feels like he’s the only person who knows how to speak to Percival. It’s not that he doesn’t understand other people’s frustrations with him, after all Percival has a tendency to assume that other folk can understand him in his jaguar form as easily as they can when he’s human. Newt has sat through more than one exasperated session of complaint by Queenie, who, despite her natural legilimency, is entirely unable to understand anything jaguar Percival is thinking.

“It’s not like he’s got an accent even, honey. It’s like he’s talking a different language, and he’s not even using words to do it!”

Which, as far as Newt’s concerned is entirely the point.

People, as ever, just don’t pay enough attention. Too wrapped up in their own worlds, or more likely, their own beliefs, they repeatedly fail to read the very obvious clues being given to them. Newt simply can’t understand it. That having been said, he will admit that it’s nothing quite as simple as ‘once for yes, twice for no’, although Percival is of course entirely capable of that sort of communication. That it’s beneath him to do so is apparently also the case.

No, Newt understands Percival in far more subtle signals. It’s the twitch of his tail when he hears something that amuses him, and the low grumbling growling noise he makes - jaguar chatter as Newt thinks of it - whenever he’s happily concentrating on what he’s doing. It’s the head tilt that says _really?_ and the long, cool stare that means he wants something and he’s going to get it no matter what anyone else thinks.

Newt can tell the difference between the sarcastic head-tilt that means _are we really doing this?_ and the one that means _are you okay?_ He can read disgust in the way he licks his lips, and happiness in the raw growling that substitutes for a purr. In short, Newt’s got a pretty solid handle on jaguar speak, which is good because Percival doesn’t offer any clues otherwise.

Still, it doesn’t stop Queenie’s complaints when Percival, passing through his living room during one of her visits, throws a snarl her way and carries on walking up the stairs and away.

“Did I do something wrong?” she asks, hesitantly.

Newt, shaking his head, sighs. “No,” he says, watching his oblivious partner vanish around the turn in the stairs. “He’s just saying hello.”

  


 

**3\. Protection: Keeping an eye out for your animagus.**

 

_"I've always admired the dedication it takes to become what you are, Director. But at the end of day, you've lost because you've allowed yourself to go too far. You're too much the beast, and like a beast you are a slave to your instincts." ~ Gellert Grindelwald._

 

There’s a rage burning inside Graves. It’s pushed down somewhere deep inside him, beneath the cool professionalism and the smooth, diplomatic tone he takes with Congress. It’s rarely in his eyes, even when the Ghost prints another salacious story about his theorized missteps that led to Grindelwald’s infiltration all those years ago. They run a piece like it every couple of years, regular as clockwork, whenever they need something to boost their sales. It’s not in what he says to the ‘investigative journalists” that still sometimes turn up on the doorstep, looking to make their break with an inside scoop direct from the man himself. Nor is it present when the powerful local magical families drop barbed comments and unsubtle hints about the security of the nation in the hands of a man with his history.

Newt catches it though sometimes, in the angle of Percival’s gaze, or the stillness of his smile.

There are questions too, about the nature of a man who takes to the streets in the form of a beast, who tracks dark wizards with his nose, and who stalks them through the shadows with his claws closer at hand than his wand. There are old and strange discriminations amongst some of the families for those who take the path of the animagus, although Newt thinks they’ve all forgotten their history and their studies. More likely they weren’t interested in listening in the first place.

Percival, he knows, expresses his rage in the energy he puts into his work. Newt’s seen how that energy translates into action, and how merciless an opponent it makes his partner. A few years back, a small faction made an attempt on Newt's life in retaliation for the Grindelwald affair, but unfortunately for them Percival had been there too. Newt can still remember the way they’d screamed when Percival had come out of the dark at them, claws and teeth bared. They’d been fast, but Percival had been enraged, and he’d been faster.

Society had been divided when the story broke. Newt is still the darling of the magical world, their favourite eccentric, and the outpouring of anger at the attack on him had been genuine. However Percival’s manner of dealing with it had stirred up the same old fears and ugly rumours. The sharp tongue of the Quibbler had been quick to draw people’s attention back to the magizoologist who chose to shack up with a beast mage.

As much as Percival is capable of handling the pressures from political factions who dislike him for his unusual ability, it’s Newt that takes care of the press, Newt who closes the door in their faces, and who turns people away or pushes copies of his book into their hands with a cheerful smile and a promise that it’s a genuine signed edition. Newt has a silent alliance with Silverton, Graves’ PA, and between them they keep the wolves from the door, and in their own, careful way, protect the man who has dedicated his life to the protection of everyone else.

 

 

**4\. Unwanted Extras: Coping with lifestyle changes.**

 

_"As good as you look at my side, Percival, and we do look good, I could do without the goddamned fur all over my formal robes." ~ Seraphina Picquery._

 

Despite his reputation, Percival Graves isn’t all ferocious, unrelenting beast. As much as he may sometimes choose to capitalize on this view of him in the press, no-one, man or beast, or someone who is arguably both, can be dangerous and sleek and powerful _all_ the time. His underlings may not believe it, and his direct superior may only suspect it through long experience of the lifestyle of power, but Newt knows it for certain. When people sigh appreciatively over Percival Graves, over his elegant dress and his handsomely silvering hair, when they swoon over his poise and his charm, and the dangerous, beautiful jaguar form he can wear, they probably don’t think much beyond that. Newt does.

In the warm glow of the bedside lamps, Percival stretches out on their bed, so big like this he can reach almost the full width of it without effort, and rolls over to present his belly to the world. Newt shifts closer, readjusts the strap of the grooming brush around the back of his hand, and begins to groom his upturned belly in short, circular strokes. “It’s a good job I’m handy with the cleaning charms,” Newt tells him, voice made a little uneven by his efforts. “Look at the amount of fur coming off you! We’re supposed to sleep in this bed, you know!”

Percival merely stretches his legs in return, one big forepaw hooking around the back of Newt’s head as he works. “Don’t you claw me,” Newt admonishes him, and Percival grunts in reply.

Grooming a jaguar is not an easy task. It takes a surprising amount of effort to do it manually, and Newt will never cease to be amazed by just how much fur comes off him each time. Still, better this than he gets it all over the office, or worse, all over his aurors. _Or_ the President, for that matter. As much as Seraphina Picquery likes the imagery they present when side-by-side - she in her finery, he her faithful and dangerous animagus enforcer - she has little patience for the realities of it all.

Newt doesn’t mind though. To him, these calm, peaceful evenings are a golden haven amidst a sometimes dark and often hectic life. He’s more than happy to keep a set of brushes aside, the type that will suit the thickness of a jaguar’s coat, and use them to keep his partner from leaving fur over every last surface.

Beneath his brushes Percival’s golden eyes slip further and further closed, until finally he starts to snore.

 

 

**5\. Discreet Living: Avoiding detection by no-majs.**

 

_"Newt, buddy, I gotta ask, can you keep your pet out of the shop? I mean, I know he's trained, ha, the circus right? Right. But, ah, he scares the customers, you know? I mean, ha! He scares me sometimes! Those eyes- he watches me like he knows what I'm saying, huh. Or what I'm thinking! Never seen anything like it." ~ Jacob Kowalski._

 

In the early days, before Jacob and Queenie left America to start a new life together in France, they used to have to pretend to Jacob that magic didn’t exist. It was part of the terms of a private agreement set up between Percival and Queenie, for her secret carrying-on with a no-maj couldn’t possibly stay secret for long, not with a sister in the aurors and a close friend who was sleeping with the Director of Magical Security.

In those days they were simply a group of bohemian sorts, Tina with her strange office job that somehow wasn’t secretarial, Queenie, who could have taken Broadway by storm, and Newt, a beast tamer who once travelled with the circus along with his pet jaguar, Nox.

In all honesty Jacob meeting Percival in his beast form had been entirely by accident. He’d come along on Queenie’s arm to visit Newt and his “friend” and there he was, a jaguar, black as pitch, sprawled out on the rug before the fire. “Beast tamer” had apparently been the first thing that had jumped into Queenie’s head. Even in his jaguar form, even unable to read his mind, everyone other than perhaps Jacob had heard Percival’s mental cry of _what?!_

As with so many other things, Jacob had taken to this new development with all the composure of a man with a soul whose equanimity had been forged in fire, which, considering his history, is entirely the case. Percival of course had been furious and disdainfully dismissive of the ‘foolish’ explanation, but despite his best efforts the story had stuck and his fate was sealed.

These days, whenever Percival begins to irritate Newt too greatly, Newt simply warns him to have a care, or he’ll pack him off back to the circus and be done with him. No matter how much he might glare, if Newt’s not mistaken, Percival is both highly offended and nonetheless, in some small, secret corner of his heart, deeply amused by the idea. Jacob, wisely, never raises the matter again even once his memories are fully restored, but sometimes Newt catches him watching Percival out of the corner of his eye and he thinks that maybe, just maybe, Jacob’s still not entirely sure what the whole truth is. Whatever the case, Percival chooses never to enlighten him.

 

 

**x. The rewards.**

 

 _“_ _I think, Mr Graves, that I may be in love with you.” ~ Newt._

 

Their relationship is not without its ups and downs. Newt travels a lot, and Percival Graves is Director of Magical Security for MACUSA, with all that entails. Both of them are celebrities in their own right, and sometimes the stress of that becomes a little too much. And then of course there’s Percival’s animagus magic. As much as Newt would like to say that such things don’t matter to him, dating an animagus comes with its own peculiar set of concerns.

Percival, like most people, sleeps on the bed. Except he does it in his jaguar form, and he never cleans the fur off afterwards. Worse, sometimes he doesn’t even change form all night, and Newt’s left crammed along one edge of the bed as his partner sprawls across it in the way only a fourteen stone jaguar built entirely of muscle can. In summer he’s a heat engine, his thick fur holding the warmth close and when he lies next to Newt by morning Newt is half-dead from the heat of it.

When they argue, which to be fair, isn’t all that often, Percival sulks in jaguar form. Newt, already conflict-averse, takes this as another attempt to extend a fight and the two of them spend hours afterwards co-existing in frosty silence, with Percival licking his paws and ignoring Newt in the very pointed way only felines can. It drives Newt entirely up the wall, and he makes it very clear through his extreme politeness just what he thinks of his partner’s cheating. _Bastard cat sulking_ , is what he calls it, and Percival simply sniffs and carries on cleaning his claws.

He eats a lot, and he’s picky about his food even though it’s all straight from the butcher and he could simply change form and eat the casserole Queenie brought them, and his breath stinks of raw meat when he pushes his muzzle close to Newt’s face in affection, and he complains if Newt tells him he’s heavy when he drapes himself across his lap, and he whiffs a bit sometimes if he’s been rolling in the dirt down in Newt’s case, and it’s really only a joke the whole circus thing why do you get so worked up about it?

But to Newt, whenever anyone asks, isn’t it a bit…. _odd_ to have a partner like him? the answer is perfectly clear. As strange as their relationship may be, even by the standards of wizarding folk, he doesn’t mind at all.

In the middle of the night, in the darkest of days, Percival is warmth and security. He’s dangerous and intoxicatingly powerful, sleek and deadly whatever form he chooses. His magic is incredible, both the spells and the transformation, and Newt is endlessly, deeply in love with it. He’s the fantastic in a world already crammed to the brim with wonders. He’s stubborn, and over-protective, and kind, and his tongue is rougher than sandpaper, but he’s Newt’s.

Percival Graves, man and jaguar, is the presence at his side in the dawn and the dusk when no-one else is around. He’s the shadow that sees him home safe, and the slow, languorous laughter in his bed. He’s protection writ in spellwork and long, vicious claws. He’s MACUSA’s proud defender, and the nose that snuffles Newt’s pockets for food until Newt falls over in laughter. He’s all of these things, complex and subtle and hidden from the rest of the world.

And as far as Newt is concerned, he’s simply perfect.

  


 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading!


	2. Percival

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Percival Graves could have used a book on how to be an animagus when he’d first undergone the ritual - preferably one that detailed what came after in a bit more depth. Maybe he should write one himself.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For the anon who reminded me that I did in fact want to write Percival's POV. :]

**1\. Injury and Illness: How to seek treatment while living incognito.**

 

_ "Sir, please be careful." ~ Tina Goldstein. _

 

He’d not been prepared for it, the first time he’d changed into his jaguar form. The books had all said the process wouldn’t hurt, that the transformation was nothing like the were-curse and that there would be no pain. They weren’t wrong, but they hadn’t been entirely forthcoming on what it would really be like either. 

The transformation had been far from anything he’d prepared himself for. It was nothing close to the coil and ripple of apparition, or the nausea-inducing twisting of portkey travel. Percival had gone into it expecting something along those lines and so the actual sensation of changing took him entirely by surprise. Animagus transformation proved to be more to do with growing and reforming, organs shifting and bones stretching to unfamiliar lengths, skin itching and body resetting itself. None of it had  _ hurt _ but it hadn’t felt like anything else he’d ever experienced before either and it certainly hadn’t felt  _ right _ , and so the first real experience he’d had of his beast form was how it felt to throw up as a jaguar. Not his finest hour.

Time and experimentation had given him a deeper understanding of his new ability, and allowed him to use his body in ways he’d never before considered. Of course he’d made plans beforehand, had ideas - you didn’t undergo the gruelling animagus ritual on a whim and without some idea of what you wanted to get out of it - but none of his assumptions had ever come close to the reality. Percival falls into his jaguar form and it’s like the world erupts with scent and flavour. He can smell the water in the clouds half a day away, the air made damp with it in a way his human nose could never pick out. He can hear voices from the street outside as clearly as though the window is wide open and the first time he experiences such improved clarity he freezes up in shock.

Of course, his body changes in other ways too. As his nose becomes sharper, his sight becomes less so, and things he’d once have been able to pick out with ease become blurred into a haze of indistinguishable greys. Colour fades, even as scents become more brilliant. The world becomes yellow and grey, washed-out orange and faded blue. The trade-off is both fascinating and worth it for the strength and agility of his new form. The power in his muscles is astonishing to him, and, endlessly delighted, he chases himself in circles those first few weeks after gaining his new ability, careful to stay out of sight but overwhelmed with the desire to leap and pounce and _climb_. The world takes on a new feel, a new pull to go up or under, or _into the water._ Swimming becomes a need, like a man might crave the warmth of the sun on his skin on a cold day.

Still, he makes mistakes. The first time he’d gotten sick as a jaguar it had been entirely his own fault. People say that animals know what to eat and what not to, but whether this is untrue for animagi or just untrue in general Percival doesn’t know. What he learns is that he can’t keep on eating the same foods as he always has done. That the beef casserole he’d prepared for his human form was  _ far _ too rich for his jaguar belly, and that something in it - some spice or vegetable - was not compatible with jaguar physiology. He’d regretted that deeply, and been more than a little indignant to discover that simply changing back to his human form did not allow him to escape the consequences of indulgence. 

He’d been more careful after that, and in time he does in fact learn that his nose can pick out the truly bad things if he lets it do its job and doesn’t allow his human side to impose its own ideas on matters. Still though, greed will sometimes get the better of him, and when the beast wants, oh how it wants. On the other hand he’s come to understand that eating certain things in jaguar form will speed his recovery from any illness, and do so far more effectively than many wizard-brewed potions. And of course sometimes, for no discernible reason, it’s simply easier to tough certain illnesses out in his beast form. 

With that in mind, living with a magizoologist has its benefits. Fantastic beasts aside, Newt also cultivates a broad variety of magical and non-magical plants down in his case, some of which he uses to feed his beasts, others which are there solely for their medicinal properties. Percival takes great pleasure in browsing Newt’s herb garden, relaxing in the fascinating range of scents and bowing to Newt’s superior knowledge whenever a poultice or a potion is required. Content to lie sprawled as a jaguar amidst the fragrant plants he watches as Newt weeds the rows, blinking slowly at him in the warm light of the magical sunlamps. Newt tolerates his presence with good grace, talking to him about the tasks of the day, and the gossip particular to magical beasts. There’s more of it than Percival would ever have expected.

In truth, although he’d learned to look after himself quite comfortably, being a fully functioning adult after all, the time before Newt’s coming into his life had been a far less secure one. Injury as a jaguar, and injury is an almost unavoidable part of a field auror’s life, could be a far more serious matter than as a human. A serious injury taken whilst in his beast form would prevent him from shifting back, and on the whole people are far less welcoming to an intimidatingly large injured predator than a bleeding but handsome man. 

Newt though, Newt knows his potions and his poultices, and has no fear of stitching up an animagus in human or beast form. He knows all the best ways to heal a wound, soothe a strain and magic away bruising. And although his expression may be grim and tight throughout, shot through with unspoken worry, he doesn’t chide Percival for his mistakes, at least not out loud, and for that Percival is willing to forgive him almost anything. 

Besides which, he really does make a solid bellyache potion.

  
  


 

**2\. Communication: Getting your point across without the need for words.**

 

_ “I wish I could read you, Mr Graves, sir. It would make things so much easier.” ~ Queenie Goldstein. _

 

It surprises him how people react to his jaguar form. Some want to touch him, their eyes lighting up with a peculiar sort of greed as they reach out a hand to stroke his fur. A quick lift of his lips to show his fearsome fang teeth is usually enough to bring those sorts back to their senses with admirable speed, but it surprises him the distinction they seem to draw between Percival Graves the man and Percival Graves the jaguar. They’d never dare reach out and stroke their fingers through his hair when he’s a man, so why they suddenly lose all control upon sight of his beast form he’s never quite managed to work out.

Of course, it helps that his animal form is sleek and beautiful. In this he has the advantage over less fortunate animagi - the beetles and the snakes and the one rather unfortunate skunk that he heard of years back. A sizeable black jaguar such as he, with his perfectly dark coat and gleaming golden eyes draws people’s attention and excites their imaginations. The glances that come his way are interested, admiring, occasionally covetous. (Not long after he becomes Director there is a brief spate of attempts to complete the animagus ritual by various interested and ambitious parties. Some of them even succeed. Still, he has no sympathy whatsoever for the wizard that turns out to possess an inner donkey, particularly when he’s forced to send a team to bring him in after he’s found using his ability to rustle cattle out in the Midwest.) 

Seraphina is  _ delighted _ by his ability, or rather by the most excellent narrative they can build with it. Graves is reluctant to be used by anyone, he’s a proud man and dismissive of anyone attempting to control him, but even he is swayed by the romance of her vision. The President and her deadly protector, with she in her flawless finery and he his sleek jaguar form it’s hard to tell which of them is the more beautiful. Together they are a force that cannot be denied. 

Still though it saddens him how some people react, particularly those close to him, and he tells this to Newt as they sit back under the false stars of the magizoologist’s case, enjoying a glass of port. Even some of his longest-serving aurors react with a level of fear that confuses Percival. It’s hard, Percival tells Newt, not to intimidate sometimes. His beast form is large and muscular, his paws - and his  _ claws _ \- made for climbing and catching prey, his golden eyed gaze intense and inscrutable, all aspects of his form that lend themselves to intimidation. People often misread his body language, taking in the idle twitching of his tail or a bored and coincidental glance in their direction, and misinterpret it as a warning. 

It’s the sounds too, he knows that. A jaguar’s throat is not made to produce noises of comfort to anyone but perhaps other jaguars, and the slightest hitch of his breath results in a low growl that can make even the hardiest of his aurors turn round to keep him in their line of sight. It can be a useful effect, but at the same time… He tells Newt all of this with a mingled sense of amusement and bafflement, and does his best to conceal the shade of hurt that colours his observations. Newt for his part, doesn’t attempt to offer any solutions. He has no fear of Percival in either of his forms, and despite not being a natural legilimens appears to have no trouble whatsoever interpreting Percival’s moods. At least in jaguar form. It does privately amuse and somewhat flummox Percival that Newt’s grasp of his intentions appears far stronger when Percival is a beast.

Nonetheless, human or beast, Newt is a good listener and his skills of observation far outrank nearly anyone Graves has ever met. More importantly, he makes no assumptions regarding Percival’s ability that might lead to awkwardness between them, and it’s this fairness of mind that drew Percival to him in the first place. It’s refreshing to have someone capable of following him from human to jaguar with no break in his comprehension of Percival as a  _ person. _ That and the fact that Newt has never once looked upon him with fear, at least outside of Percival’s demands for his paperwork to be accurately filled out.

If other people cannot be relied upon to rein in their wild imaginings, Percival knows that Newt can, and furthermore when others get too intrusive or simply too tiresome with their assumptions, there’s always Newt ready to share a conciliatory glass of port, or cuddle up close without complaint for the fur that might get left behind and with absolutely no fear whatsoever of heavy paws, curving fangs and truly enormous claws.

  
  
  


**3\. Personal Protection: Self-defence for the travelling animagus.**

 

_ “Is this an Ilvermorny thing, the prancing in circles, or have you thrown your back out?” ~ Theseus Scamander. _

 

A wizard cannot cast without a wand, so says common knowledge. But what does common knowledge know of powerful mages, wandless spellwork, and the subtleties of animagus magic? The answer, as with so many other things about the nature of the animagus, is  _ not very much at all. _

The city is alive beneath Percival’s paws. He can feel its heartbeat in the rhythm of its populace, in the millions strong reverberation of their footsteps, where they are the blood that travels its body, filling the arteries of its streets and flooding the chambers of its great city hall heart. He can hear the city breathe in the tides that lap the shores of Long Island, in the slow cycling of the water’s rise and fall. Beneath it all he can feel the pull of the land itself, the density of the bedrock, the certainty of its solid presence even measured against the ancient fault lines that crack along their way far beneath the notice of those living above. There’s power in the land, drawn up through the soles of people’s feet, bent and shaped by the will and walls of their city. He feels it, and he uses it.

A jaguar casts with the rhythm of his paws, with the depth of the shadows and the sharp strike of his talons. If magic is intent, then he uses every part of his being to realise it. As a jaguar the word of the spell is the rhythm of his feet, the movement of the wand the flick of his tail or the silken line he makes against stone and sky. He describes the magic with his body, and the power flows from the land, through him and back out into the world. It’s a different type of casting to when he works as a man, and a subtler kind of magic. The world itself reacts differently to him when he wears his jaguar form, changed in ways he cannot quite articulate when he sheds the feline and walks again on two feet. As a jaguar he feels where the lines of the land’s power intersect by the crackle of static in his fur and the way the air tastes of ozone and that strange, sharp sweet-salt hint of memory. 

Percival takes to the streets, following the scent of magic and the whisper of intuition. People say that magic dies in the city, but those people don’t understand very much at all. People make magic, and wherever there are people there will be magic. But jaguars are not human, and although he still has his human side, when he’s a jaguar the world is a different place. Percival patrols his city in the night, listening the older power that runs below the newness of the city, the bedrock and the long-dead forests now gone to stone, and he lifts it up in his paws and weaves it through his wandering. He chases spells of protection into his rovings, walking out a pattern of warding that swings wide and threads complex along the streets and behind the food carts, over the rooftops and down the rickety fire-escapes. House cats with gleaming green eyes watch him pass, and sometimes they run alongside him for a while and cast with him, more powerful than anyone gives them credit for.

You can use the magic in the stones to weave wards that rebuff and alert when crossed. You can pull it spiralling upwards from the land and coil it in your muscles, storing it in your body until your fur sparks with it and your claws turn as cold as the ice of winter - magic to strengthen limbs, purge poison or turn aside disease. You can read the future in the scents carried on the wind, and hear the things that echo between the walls of the cities, thought but not spoken aloud. There’s no  _ lumos _ or  _ expelliarmus _ , but there is magic to turn aside the eyes of the curious or sniff out sickness in another.

Percival Graves can, as a man, cast the most complex and powerful of wizarding spells. But when it comes to Newt he prefers the jaguar magic. He wraps his partner up in spells of protection woven from the newly paved streets, magic to keep his path unobstructed and his presence unnoticed. Newt draws the eye of mage and no-maj alike with his curious gait and quickly hidden eyes. He’s pretty and interesting and unusual, and Percival Graves will see off anyone that intends him harm of any kind. And so he walks circles around Newt, touching his nose to the man’s shoulders when he crouches down to meet him, lending him his strength, his power, and perhaps just a little bit of his luck. 

Newt knows, Percival thinks, that he’s doing it. He has a good grasp of the way his own beasts cast their various magics and although he’s not an overly powerful wizard himself he is subtle and skilled, enough to notice such transferences of energy. He doesn’t say anything, and he doesn’t turn the gifts down either. Instead he crouches on his heels, hand outstretched so that he can glide his palm along Percival’s spine as the jaguar circles him, letting the magic settle gently across his skin, catching him up in the weave of the city’s power. It’s all that Percival can give him without trapping him in a way that’s unfair. Percival values his freedom so much more these days, and because of that his awareness of the needs of others has become acute and painful. 

They don’t talk about the jaguar magic, although Percival knows that Newt must be curious. It’s not something that Percival has ever spoken about to anyone, so personal is it. They’re not in school anymore, with the lack of autonomy of young students everywhere, and some things are too intimate to be discussed easily even with the most nearest and dearest of companions. The jaguar magic is  _ Percival’s  _ secret, a hidden part of himself whose intricacies no-one has ever seen. That he allows Newt to experience as much of it as he does is testimony to his ease with the man, his trust in him, and his gratitude for someone who, for once, simply doesn’t pry. 

  
  


 

**4\. The Law: Remaining on the right side of society.**

 

_ “THE ANIMAGUS! Beastman or just Beast?” ~ Article headline, Jona Keepstaff, journalist for the New York Ghost. _

 

Of course, it’s not just his senses that improve or his magic that changes. Other elements of his being shift too, and more alarmingly, aspects of his mental capacity as well. 

An animagus must be careful not to let their instincts get the better of them in their animal form. The dog must not steal from the table, the mouse must overcome his timidity, and the cat must be mindful that they not forget themselves and apply their claws to the furniture. The beast has its own ways, but the magus must remember that they are still human. 

This is how he failed. 

He remembers the night for the golden glow of the streetlamp, in the way it had reflected back from the puddles at the mouth of the alley and for the chill in the air that had signalled the turn from fall into the coming winter. The top of the wall had been spiked with broken glass intended to keep out unwanted human visitors from the storage yard beyond, and he had been picking his way carefully along this vicious walkway, his attention on his footing. It was night, it was cold, well past midnight, and the streets had been whispering  _ predator _ for days now. For the first time in years, Graves could not understand them. 

He does not recall what had made him look down. But he remembers the stillness of the other man, and the way his scent had come to him suddenly, as though someone had opened a sealed box and let out the bitter aroma of mouldy herbs and components gone to rot. Percival cannot recognise faces in the same way when he’s a jaguar, for his feline mind is not wired to read and remember human bone structures, but that uneven twist of the man’s mouth had transcended species boundaries and in an instant he had known.

This then is how he failed, and this is how it happened. 

An animagus must never forget himself when he’s in his beast form, for stolen dinners and clawed bookshelves aside, the beast cannot be allowed to bite. The reputation of the animagus, of  _ all _ animagi hangs from a delicate thread, and one unfortunate snap of the jaws will be splashed across tomorrow’s newspapers in headlines far hotter than the blood he spills. 

This is the hesitation that almost got him killed. Percival Graves, for the first time in his life  _ unlucky _ , recognises that smile from a thousand WANTED! posters, and the jaguar - hunter on high, shadowy ambush predator - the jaguar wants to leap, to close his jaws around the other man’s skull, to crack the bone between his teeth, and crush beneath his weight the body of his prey. This is how the jaguar hunts, natural as any beast, and although the impetus to act is burning in every part of Graves, the human in him holds him back. He should transform, he should make an arrest, he should  _ fight-  _ He nearly leapt then anyway, ready to tear out Grindelwald’s throat, already tasting the blood, but the auror in him snarled  _ no! _ and in the space it took him to decide what to do, the dark wizard had him.

A powerful wizard, dark or not, can make short work of even a magical jaguar. Grindelwald caught him in midair -  _ petrificus totalus! -  _ and the last thing Percival Graves remembers of the man is that slanted, sardonic smile, and then nothing but blackness.

Grindelwald locked him up, kept him far away from society, but held close still in a tobacco tin in his breast pocket because the sheer cheek of him, the audacity, beggars belief. Percival will never, ever forget the dark of it. A jaguar has good night vision, but that was perfect black, and all his strength and all his rage, the power in his body and the sharpness of his claws were as nothing against the cage that Gellert crafted for him. 

He remembers it still, comes awake at night sweating with the memory of it and almost kicks Newt awake in his panic. The blackness of the bedroom is so easily mistaken for the absolute dark of that tiny prison, with the tin walls pressing in around him, and the pressure of Grindelwald’s mind on his, burning like ice, squeezing until his bones creaked and his blood boiled and- Newt lays his palms on Percival’s shoulders, his skin cool against the sweat on Percival’s neck, until Percival reaches up and takes hold of his hands, kneeling down with Newt curled over his back until he can breathe again without feeling as though he is dying. 

Percival Graves is a powerful wizard, some say the most powerful wizard in all of North America, but even the powerful,  _ especially _ the powerful, make mistakes. He pulls Newt against him, letting the other man’s long arms come down around his shoulders, allowing the strength in the man’s wiry body to anchor him to the here and now. Newt is silent, and when the heat of panic leaves Percival, he’s warm too against the cold that replaces it.

“I’ll put some tea on,” Newt says gently. “Yes? A spot of tea will help us settle down again.”

In the privacy of their home, Percival submits to his partner’s tender ministrations. He allows himself to be led downstairs to the kitchen, content to sit and wait until the kettle shrills, relieved to not be alone and grateful, ever grateful, for the light that Newt brings with him, and in which Percival so greedily wraps himself. 

  
  


 

**5\. The Modern Animagus: Avoiding social faux-pas.**

 

_ “I’m not going to ask how you know that, Percival, I’m just going to trust that you’re right. And should it turn out that you’re not right, I’m going to make sure you take every last inch of the blame for it.” ~ Seraphina Picquery. _

 

You can tell so many different things about people in your beast form. Being a jaguar takes away his ability to read humans as accurately by sight as humans read one another, but he becomes far more observant in different ways. He can smell illness on people, sometimes before they themselves know that they’re unwell. There’s a change to the smell of them, to the complex layering of elements that make up their overall scent. Something sour when it should be mild, or sweet when it should smell of nothing at all. The intimacy of it all might make a human frown, but to Percival the jaguar it’s as mundane a thing as picking up a newspaper and reading the headlines. 

It means that he can pick up on changes, on emotional states and by extension perhaps the opinions that accompany them too. Happiness smells healthy, sadness of sleep and inertia. He smells magic on people, and he smells sex. It’s easy to tell who is lending their magic to whom, and who is spending more time with someone than they want anyone else to know. He can smell Queenie’s pregnancy when that comes along, and of course he knew about the baker a long time before any of them think he did. 

Percival learns a lot about people that they leave unsaid, and he keeps most, if not all of it, to himself. There are some very rare occasions when he’ll act on what he’s discovered, but the gain must far outweigh any potential embarrassment for all involved, because although he can it doesn’t mean he  _ should _ . Still, he  _ knows _ , and in that knowledge there’s power. He uses his jaguar abilities to track, to work out what the criminal elements of his city are up to. He follows the lines of scent they leave behind, even if they’ve been clever enough to hide their magical doings, and his instincts for where they might go and what they might do are supplemented by the accuracy of his beast form’s senses. 

The criminals he brings in know from his reputation what he is, even if they don’t fully understand what he can do. Percival doesn’t enlighten them, just leans back in his chair and smiles across the interrogation chamber at their pale faces, a smile that has nothing at all of warmth in it. Sometimes he’ll sit in the darkness of the cells, out of the line of sight, knowing that they can’t see him but that he can see them, and he’ll just watch and scent the air and listen to what they’re telling him without speaking a word.

People know, or at least they suspect, that the Director of Magical Security is a powerful legilimens. It’s not an entirely accurate assumption. Like any auror Percival has an adequate capacity for mind magic, and although he’s somewhat above average in his abilities, as is expected for a wizard of his rank, he’s no genius. Most of what he picks up is information supplemented by his own unique skill set. You can tell so much about a person simply by catching the scent of the places they’ve been, the people that have touched them, and the items they have handled. 

Newt, he thinks, cannot fail to be aware of this. Still, there’s a strange disconnect between what people know and what they remember. It makes for an interesting dynamic in their already somewhat unusual relationship, two men of such vastly different outlooks on life, whose very professions might reasonably be at odds with one another, still somehow basing the foundations of their home lives on each other’s most unusual traits. Percival is convinced that his animagus abilities give him the upper hand in navigating their relationship, helping to smooth over awkwardness, anticipate potential disasters, and work out the truth of a situation. Although in all honesty Percival can already tell when Newt is lying to him, and he doesn’t need his jaguar senses to do that. On the other hand Percival enjoys being in his jaguar form - the freedom of movement, the sheer physicality of it - and Newt is a man unfazed by beasts of any kind. Thus it’s not uncommon for them to spend their free time relaxing together, man and jaguar, perfectly content in one another’s unconventional company. 

Where in public Percival is cautious not to reveal how much he can read of another person, in private he is not above making use of his skills to his advantage. He can tell Newt’s mood from the scent of his skin, and make a far more accurate judge of his temper than with sight alone, a useful knack that’s helped him out on numerous occasions. In fact Percival had been certain of Newt’s interest in him a long time before the other man could bring himself to admit to it, enough that he suspects the confidence that knowledge gave him was possibly the only reason their initial coming together happened at all. Newt can be evasive and blind to a certain category of interactions, tuned in as he is to anything intended to harm him or his beasts, and wary of anything that proclaims itself to be friendship, let alone anything more intimate. It had taken that unshakeable certainty of Newt’s physical interest in him to bolster Percival’s courage enough to make the first move on a man who would otherwise have seemed either entirely uninterested or completely oblivious to such matters.

These days, with Newt a permanent fixture of his life, Percival does not need his jaguar’s senses to tell him when his partner’s attention is on him, or  _ why, _ for he knows him so very much better now. Still, when all their work has finally been set aside and there’s nothing left to focus on save each other, it puts a slow and wicked smile on Percival’s lips to mention just how well he can read the other man’s interest in him, one which turns rapidly to startlement when it’s met by Newt’s entirely unashamed, “Yes, and you ought to actually do something about it rather than simply lazing around being smug, you insufferable beast...”

Jaguar senses or not, there remain sides to Newt that Percival is still entirely unable to predict, and that, to him, is a source of never-ending satisfaction. 

 

  
  
**x. The rewards.**

 

_ “I understand that what you do, that it’s difficult. But what I mean to say is, and I don’t intend for you to feel trapped, but-. I am not trying to trap you. I just- please...stay. Here, with me. At least, come back here, I mean. Come back here to me.” _

_ “...I will. I’ll always come back to you.” ~ Percival Graves, Newt Scamander. _

 

Before Newt, Percival had been alone for a long time. A lifetime spent amongst the ranks of the aurors had turned him into a man driven by the demands of his profession, a slave to the needs of the society he protects. Friends had been few and entirely drawn from work, family had become distant, his parents both dead, his sister wrapped up in her own successful life. It’s only now, with Newt so present, that he understands just how bad he’d allowed it to become. 

Newt had come into Percival’s life three months after his initial return to work, and six after he’d been rescued from Grindelwald’s prison. They had not fallen immediately in love. In fact, Percival had been hard pressed to get the man to even notice him at all, so adamantly focused was the magizoologist on surviving the trial of his North American book tour. Even the mention of his animagus abilities had barely elicited more than a polite smile from the other man. It wasn’t until three aurors went out sick and Percival had ended up stepping in to stay late and run security after a signing that they’d really held more than the briefest conversation. For weeks Percival had been fascinated by this unassuming man who had, through luck, ingenuity and simple common sense, been responsible for Grindelwald’s capture. He was novel and fascinating and, Percival is not shy about admitting, physically rather appealing, particularly when filled with the fires of enthusiasm that holding forth on the topic of his creatures seems to bring about.

It had taken no small amount of charm and, Percival thinks, letting slip just a hint of desperation that Newt, usually so oblivious, somehow managed to pick up on, to entice the man out to dinner with him. Honestly, he hadn’t expected much, had simply wanted to get a better feel for the person who’d taken down the greatest dark wizard in the world where he himself had failed so magnificently. It had surprised them both how well things had gone.  

After that Newt had slipped into Percival’s life with an ease both startling and a little frightening. He’d brought with him a group of strange friends, a menagerie of beasts and a veritable circus of problems, along with a painful sense of revelation. It had been years, honest to Merlin years, since Percival Graves had sat down to Sunday dinner with anyone but his own shadow. Years since the halls of his house had rung with the voices of anyone who lived outside of memories. Decades since waking next to someone had been anything but an unwelcome surprise. Newt slips into his life, quietly and without fanfare, and suddenly Percival understands just how much he has been missing over the years.

There is no-one in Percival’s life that understands him quite like Newt does. Newt is gentle and sweet, determined and adventurous, wilder than even Percival’s jaguar heart and beloved by more people than Percival can easily count. He’s thoughtful and kind, insightful and slyly wicked, and Percival is gone for him, completely and utterly taken and unable to struggle free even should he want to. Newt invites Percival down into the exotic world of his case, allowing him to explore all the strange and wonderful things with his jaguar senses and find an entirely new world beyond the one that even Newt knows. There’s a simple and innocent purpose for Percival down there, where he can use the sharpness of his nose to diagnose and root out illnesses, tell when the feed crop is ripe, and confirm which of the Mooncalf dams are ready to have their tiny babies. It’s simple and good, rewarding in an uncomplicated way that his other life is not. 

Everything for Percival exists in two worlds, the stiff starched collar world of politics, and the hot, dark shadows of his jaguar life. Newt though, Newt exists in both with the same honest truth that holds Percival to a higher standard, and brings him low with a tender kindness that’s been too long absent from his life. For Newt alone will Percival let the auror’s steely armour slip. For Newt he will slide along the highly polished floors of MACUSA’s corridors on his furry butt, sliding past at high but dignified speed, Newt’s bright burst of laughter echoing behind him. It’s Newt to whom he turns when the evenings draw in dark, when the weight of memories begin to make his steps heavy and his heart turn shadowed and cold, and it’s Newt’s lap on which he rests his head. It’s Newt to whom he turns, and Newt for whom he drops his defences, gives up his secrets and to whom, in the privacy of their bed, submits entirely. 

Throughout his life other people have always been too much. Too much trouble, too much of a demand on his already precious time, too awkward to explain the intricacies of his existence to, but with Newt that’s never the case. Newt understands what he needs and when, and he never has to feel ashamed to be himself around him. Never really has to hold back. It’s a freedom that makes something long buried deep inside Percival sing.

As far as Percival is concerned, just as with his existence, his life can be split into two distinct halves - not before and after he became an animagus, nor before and after Grindelwald as many might suspect, but before Newt, and after Newt. For it’s Newt that brings out the best in Percival Graves, and Newt that makes of the worst parts something useful. Man and beast, or something in between, without him the light would go out of Percival’s existence and the warmth would be stolen from his heart and his home. 

Still, if nothing else life has taught Percival Graves to be cautious, to watch his step and hold his tongue, and be mindful of those dear to him for that very proximity to one such as he can cause so much unintended trouble. Percival Graves has learned the hard and personal way the cost of making mistakes. So when asked by well-meaning but ultimately misguided peers, or intrusive and mercenary journalists, exactly what it is he sees in the eccentric foreigner, despite what lies in his heart the only reply Percival will give them is a smile that, although entirely human, is as dangerous as the jaguar within him and just as enigmatic.  

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And still, so many thousands of words later, the spell checker is the only way I know how to spell jaguar correctly.


End file.
